


Stargazing

by gardenvarietyunique



Category: Imperial Radch Series - Ann Leckie
Genre: Fluff, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-10-28 22:54:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20786390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardenvarietyunique/pseuds/gardenvarietyunique
Summary: Seivarden tries to be thoughtful.





	Stargazing

Ekalu had been sitting in the decade room, watching a newsfeed from downwell with hungry eyes. 

“Is that telescope footage?” Seivarden, on breakfast, sat down and accepted her tea. Ekalu was finishing her dinner.

“No, it's a high-powered camera at a star-gazing festival in one of the major flatlands. I grew up in farming country, our province had one every summer.”

“Why bother stargazing through all that light pollution? Wouldn’t you rather have seen the stars from space?”

Ekalu gave her a withering look. “Not everyone who lives on a planet goes into space.”

She had first seen the stars—really seen them—at fifteen. Clinging with both hands and her magnetized boots to a ladder outside the airlock on her family’s prized Notai shuttle, only half listening to a checklist of things that honored daughters of the house were supposed to casually mention while their aunts and mothers toured illustrious visitors around the defunct enemy vessel. 

The list, like the stars, was endless. You couldn’t remember it unless you really paid attention.

It wasn’t long until they were scheduled for overlapping time on the station.

“I thought the gardens were closed to visitors during this period,” Ekalu said, arms folded, looking pointedly at the notice on the wall monitor by the door. _Our plants are sleeping! Please visit Athoek Station Gardens during Station Daytime Hours._

“I have connections,” Seivarden said. Basnaaid had only asked for a favor in return, which seemed safe. She flourished unnecessarily at the door in case Station was waiting for a signal or something. After a moment, the door opened. Ekalu’s eyebrows went up but she said nothing.

Sure enough, there was a little flat-bottomed boat waiting in one of the sheds by the lake. It was difficult to navigate with only work lights, but Seivarden got it into the lake and launched herself in after pushing it out. Ekalu, swearing, grabbed the sides. 

“You’re going to capsize it!”

“I am not!”

And she wasn’t, at least not immediately. Seivarden took her jacket off, rolled up her shirtsleeves, and rowed them out to the center of the little lake. Ekalu didn’t look particularly impressed, but then again it was almost impossible to see her this far out on the water. There were no work lights in the middle of the lake.

“Why are we out here?” Ekalu’s voice floated in the darkness.

Almost there. Station had been silent up to this point, but Seivarden silently asked it for confirmation and after a moment it said, now. Seivarden propped the oar up on the sides of the boat.

“Look up.”

The structure of the dome was invisible in the darkness. There was only, and endlessly, the stars, and seeing them isolated like this was so unlike seeing their proxies on the shipboard monitors that to be floating on the lake was to be floating in the vastness of the void.

Ekalu’s breath caught in her throat. Seivarden, who had at least had the benefit of knowing why they were on the lake in the darkness of the off-hours, was silent.

“The star-gazing festival,” Ekalu said after a long silence. “You remembered my talking about it.”

“I spent a lot of time in space,” Seivarden said. It was easier to talk like this, without having to see the other person’s face. “My family had this Notai vessel people toured—and then there was officer training, and standing years of watches after that—you get used to it.”

“How?” Ekalu gestured up at the stars, narrowly missing Seivarden in the darkness. “It’s magnificent.”

Seivarden shifted forward, reaching for Ekalu. Her hand knocked into something solid. A splash.

“Aatr’s tits—“

“I’ll get it—“

“No, it’s my fault—“

“Be careful!”

Too late. Seivarden leaned over, groped around, couldn’t find the oar, and overcorrected.

And this is why visitors are discouraged from attending the Gardens in the dark, Station said to both of them as Seivarden surfaced, gasping, and grabbed for the side of the boat. A sharp object smacked into the back of her head. 

“Something’s in here!”

She’s found the oar, said Station. Ekalu started laughing. 

“It was very good,” Ekalu assured Seivarden as they put the boat back into the shed. “Surprisingly thoughtful.” Seivarden’s boots squelched in the grass. Ekalu stifled another laugh.

“I’m going to leave a water trail all the way back to quarters,” Seivarden grumbled as they headed towards the door, work lights switching on in front of them and off behind them.

“I can’t be seen with someone in that state,” Ekalu said, entirely serious. “We’ll have to wring your clothes out.”

“There’s nothing I can—oh.” Seivarden grinned. Why hadn’t she thought of that? “You’re probably right. Shall I?”

“No, let me,” said Ekalu, reaching for a shirt button. “After all, no one is going to be in the gardens right now. Well. No one else.”


End file.
